facaldaquiRoyalChicagoFCIan Royal Think it's fairly safe to assume Bristol, Donny, Derby and Preston are going to be safe tbh.
I'm inclined to think so, yup
However, I'm also inclined to believe that the floor's gonna fall out from underneath someone over their final dozen or so games --we can see the end from here, but there's still plenty of somebody's season left to come flying utterly apart between here and there
Watford?
At a glance, Scunny (and I'm with Dirk here; would need to take a comparative in-depth look at squad strength, injuries et al, but my gut's telling me to go with the guys who came up via the play-offs if they haven't managed to scoot well clear of danger by now --which sorta goes to your point about how we're the ones from the rockpile of two seasons back who got mugg'd in the end; at this stage, go with old hands to claw their way up and over-- and their goal-difference these days tells a tale of its own)
The rest of their month goes Ipswich(A), Newcastle(A), Plymouth(H), Peterborough(H) and Sheff Utd(A), and they'd better come out of those five with at least 6 points and likely something closer to 9
Palace, with a potentially brutal four-match run beginning next Tuesday, are looming ever larger as candidates for a late slide and may well end up blaming that 10-point deduction for something more than just its cosmetic effect
I take well your exemplar of Brum and Wolves at the end of last season --nailing it down once and for all is no easy thing (although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Toon come out atop this thing by ten clear points in the end and to make a real push to finish on a hundred points)
Oh, and
North Eaat royal if we win our 3 games in hand we could be 10th and 5 points off the play offs
I look upon the three games in hand as three free points, whether from a trio of draws or a win against two defeats; confident though I am, anything beyond that is free money AFAIC, and in any case, I don't see us picking up 9 points on dates when just about all of the rest of the division is sat at home looking on (but I'd be delighted to eat my words if we were to pick up, say, 6 or even more)
